Restored
by ginny1017
Summary: After the war, Harry begins to put his life back together, with Ginny's help and one small, but very important gift.


This is a work of fiction, which borrows characters created and/or owned by JK Rowling, Warner Bros.,

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, Raincoast Books, and Scholastic Inc.

I do not own the characters, certainly no profit was made from the use of them,

and no harm came to them in the course of writing the story.

I return them to their owners with thanks.

RESTORED

By ginny1017

Professor McGonagall felt all was right in the wizarding world again at last as she walked briskly down the corridors of Hogwarts. She surveyed the damage as she went, making mental notes of areas that needed tending to immediately, so she could tell the staff. There was so much work to be done, and she felt a catch in her breath, a pain in her chest when she saw how much the school had been wounded—the building itself as well as the occupants. McGonagall shook her head, clearing the sad thoughts; that was no way to get things done, lingering on the past. She was Headmistress of Hogwarts now, and the welfare of the school—castle, teachers, and first and foremost the students—was her only concern. What was, must be restored . . . as much as it could be.

Business-like once more, she swept down the hall toward her destination. Dumbledore's office. She smiled briefly at the thought; somehow, it would always be Dumbledore's office to her, no matter how many years passed. As she approached the entrance, she saw several house elves busily at work, repairing the gargoyle that guarded the entrance to the Headmaster's office. They stopped their work and bowed low as she approached.

"No, no." She waved her hand, urging them to stand up straight. "There is no need for such things anymore, is there?" McGonagall said softly. "You have defended this castle with the rest of us. We all live here now as equals because of that."

The house elves blinked at her, and looked uncertainly at each other, but McGonagall merely smiled at them and then turned to the gargoyle, who now wore a patch over one baleful eye and had a chunk of stone missing from one shoulder. "I do not know the last password Severus Snape set over this entrance," she said, fixing him with a stern gaze, "but under the circumstances, I should think—"

The gargoyle straightened itself as best it could, and looked up at her proudly. "It is up to you, Professor McGonagall, as new Headmistress, to set the passwords to Hogwarts' secrets now. I await your instructions."

McGonagall stared at the gargoyle; never before in her time here had it spoken to her with any sort of respect. But . . . things were different now, there was no denying it. She had no doubt it would revert to its haughty ways, given time. She relaxed a bit—just a bit—and gave a brief, formal nod to the gargoyle.

"I shall decide on the password later today, then."

"As you wish."

The gargoyle limped aside and the spiral stone staircase was revealed. McGonagall stepped onto it and let it bear her upwards to the office, listening as the sounds of the house elves back at their work of repairing the statue faded away behind her.

Stepping into the office, all was hushed and dark. "First things first," she murmured, and she strode over to the curtains, pulling them back so the sun could flood the room with healing light and warmth. She then grasped the handles of one of the double-paned floor-to-ceiling windows and tugged them open, letting in a gust of warm summer air. The occupants of the many paintings in the room, Headmasters and Headmistresses of old, all stirred and blinked sleepy eyes, muttering over the intrusion. But McGonagall had eyes for only one painting. "Good morning, Dumbledore," she said warmly.

The painting of Albus Dumbledore opened its eyes, blinked twice, and then smiled down on her. "Good morning, Minerva."

She was in no way fooled that he had just woken up. "You know why I am here, Albus. I want—no, we all need things to go back to the way they were. And I believe this office, the heart of the school, is the place that should be set to rights immediately, as an example and inspiration."

Dumbledore nodded. "I agree. Please, do not let me detain you." He waved a hand in her direction and settled comfortably into his chair.

McGonagall nodded, and then turned to face the room. The lingering darkness was, in her mind, the vestiges of Snape's influence in this room, and she meant to rid it of that darkness immediately. The Headmaster's office was supposed to be a place of wisdom, counsel, and most of all, heart. Love for the school and the students . . . that was the guiding force of this place, even more than prowess in the magical arts.

Moving past the desk to the centre of the room, McGonagall raised her wand. "_Expurgio maleficus!_" The words were loud and strong and echoed throughout the space. "_Expurgio malefactoris!_"

Nothing changed, visibly, in the room itself, but a disturbance, a shimmer in the air began, starting at the tip of her wand and rippling over the objects in the room, surging in the rhythms of a wave toward the one window she had opened. Gradually, over the space of several breaths, the wave pulsed itself out the window and the room was . . . different. Nothing was left of the gloom or furtive darkness, and McGonagall heaved a sigh of relief. Dumbledore smiled and nodded in approval, and several of the other paintings cheered.

"With your permission, Albus," McGonagall turned back to him, "I'd like to bring back some of your things."

"But it is your office now, Minerva," Dumbledore reminded her gently.

"Yes, I am well aware of that," she said, looking over her spectacles at him. "But it would be a . . ." She paused, and then smiled again. "It would be a comfort to me to have a few of your possessions around."

Dumbledore nodded again. "Then by all means . . ."

McGonagall turned back to the room and raised her wand a second time. "Accio portentificus!" she said, her words softer, yet still clear and strong. In seconds, several small silver instruments—always incomprehensible in function to her and anyone else other then Dumbledore—flew through the same window, wooden tables following close behind. The tables settled in spots they had previously inhabited, the silver instruments settled on top of them and began humming and whirring quietly and mysteriously, and suddenly . . . the room seemed right again.

Sighing deeply in satisfaction, McGonagall set herself down at the desk, ignoring the chattering of the paintings behind her, and began going through the desk drawers. Soon there was a small pile of articles to her right (things she would keep) and a larger pile to her right, which she would occasionally wave her wand at, vanishing it out of existence.

Suddenly she stopped, a piece of a torn paper in her hand. She stared at it for several minutes before turning round to look up at the portrait of Dumbledore.

"This . . . this is . . . among Severus Snape's things?" she said, shock and confusion clear in her face and her voice. "What in the devil is this doing . . . here?"

Dumbledore sighed heavily, an expression of deep sadness changing his face, making it look older than even wizard paint should have allowed for. "Oh, dear," he said, his voice no more than a whisper. He shook his head, and sighed again. "I suppose I should tell you the whole story, for it to make any sense. But first . . . Minverva, before I tell you anything, I think Harry deserves to have that. It belongs to him. Could you take it to him, and then come back here? When you return, we will talk."

Harry took off his glasses and swiped his arm across his forehead, brushing away the sweat and grime that was trickling down into his eyes. Looking around at his former classmates and teachers, at the others from the wizarding world whom he did not know, he felt as if he were in a surreal sort of dream. They were all hard at it, repairing and salvaging and setting Hogwarts to rights—physically, anyway. Harry wondered how long the damage to their lives would take to heal. The losses, so many loved ones gone. . . . The restoration of the castle to its former strength and beauty would take a great deal of time to accomplish, but it would be done long before everyone's grief was softened into memories.

That morning had been particularly difficult. The castle had first to be cleared of all the bodies, a grim and painful task. Decisions had to be made: where to put the remains of those who had fallen? And, of course, everyone looked to Harry to make those decisions. But that had not been one of the difficult ones. Everyone who had fought to protect the castle deserved to be buried on its grounds, he thought, and everyone agreed. The small school graveyard would have to be expanded to accommodate the dead; Mr and Mrs Weasley had volunteered to supervise that task, and Harry, thankfully, left it to them.

But the first, unspoken priority had been to get the body of Tom Riddle out of the castle. It would not, could not be properly cleansed until that was accomplished. As they wondered where to dispose of it, George had come out of his silent mourning to suggest a cave, far away at the opposite end of the lake, a place so desolate not even the Giant Squid was known to go there. He quietly explained that he and Fred had discovered it once, during their secret explorations of the school grounds, and never told anyone of its existence.

Harry had agreed at once. That kind of obscurity was a fitting end for someone who had almost destroyed their world in his attempt to rule it. He would still be a part of the place—he was, undeniably, a part of Hogwarts' history—but in time, no one would think about him much. George had insisted on being part of that task, and so he and Percy set off, accompanied by Neville and several others, to entomb he who had called himself "Lord" in the farthest recesses of that dark, hopeless place. Harry was just as glad not to go with them. He had had enough of Tom Riddle, and there were more important things for him to do here.

Putting his glasses back on, Harry picked up a large chunk of red stone and, grunting, lifted and fitted it into a hole in the wall. The corridor they were working in had been particularly hard hit in the battle, and there were holes and the rubble to match them everywhere. And it felt good to be doing rough, physical work. They could have done it with spells, of course—many others working in other parts of the castle were. But Harry wanted to do this without magic. He wanted to leave some part of himself, even something as unnoticed as his own sweat and blood, in these walls. He couldn't explain why, but it was what he needed.

Ron and Bill were working with him, and they seemed to understand that need without speaking about it and followed his example. They had been working quietly together in this particular section all morning, a group of house elves following them with buckets of mortar swinging from their long, spindly arms as they moved to each replaced section of stone and patched it into place with the gloppy, gritty mixture. Harry watched them for a moment, and then turned away as a sharp pain pierced his chest. Dobby would have been here, toiling away right behind him, if only. . . .

_Thinking about that will not help,_ Harry told himself. _Whatever you are doing, think of it as being, in part, to preserve Dobby's memory, and the memory of all who loved this place. As you do. Think about the future. . . ._

At that thought, Harry straightened and looked around him. Where was Ginny? he wondered. He hadn't seen her this morning at breakfast, which had been a hurried affair, and they had only had a few moments together last night before Mrs. Weasley had shooed them all off to their beds. Harry smiled as he remembered her actually shoving them all toward their respective dormitories and watching to make sure the boys and girls went up to their proper places. It had made the world seem . . . normal again.

"Hey, Ron," he said as he picked up another stone to fit into the wall, "have you seen Ginny today?"

Ron frowned at him for a moment, as if the question disturbed him, but his expression quickly changed to a sheepish smile. Harry appreciated that it was still difficult for his best friend to accept the relationship between his best friend and his younger sister, so he let it slide, and waited for Ron's answer.

"Not sure," Ron replied as he stopped a stone from falling back to the floor and gestured as best he could to get a house elf's attention. "When I saw Hermione this morning"—Harry watched Ron's ears turn a dark pink—"she said she and Ginny were going to be helping Mum and Dad today, and she'd see me at lunch. Speaking of which, isn't it almost that time?"

Harry laughed and shook his head; some things never changed, and as small as those things were, he was glad he could count on them. They helped, more than he could explain, to make the world feel right again. Just as he was about to ask the house elves the very same question—he was feeling more than a little hungry himself, he realised—Harry saw Professor McGonagall hurrying down the corridor toward them. Dropping the small stone in his hands, he moved towards her.

"What's the matter, Professor? Is everything all right?" His heart quickened, hoping for an answer that would not bring him one more problem to worry about.

"Yes, yes, everything's fine, Potter," McGonagall said, stopping in front of him. "I just have something . . ." Her words trailed off as she looked hesitantly at Ron and Bill, and then she gestured at Harry to move away, so they could speak privately.

Ron watched, curious, as McGonagall spoke quietly to Harry a few steps down the corridor, and saw her hand him a small piece of paper. He saw Harry turn white as his hand slowly reached out to claim it. His best friend stared at it for a moment, then turned on his heel and was gone, moving away from them so fast he was almost a blur.

"Harry, wait!" Ron called out after him, and would have followed, but McGonagall stopped him.

"No, Ron," she said gently, and the surprise of her using his first name stopped him in his tracks. He gaped at her as she shook her head, her eyes sad and shining with tears. "Leave him be for a little while. I suspect he will share it with you in his own time, but let him go, for now."

Ginny took the steps into Hogwarts' entrance hall with deep weariness. All morning she had been out in the grounds, helping with the burials. While her father and several others had worked with spades, measuring out the space needed for each grave and figuring out how to expand the small burial ground, she had helped her mother prepare Fred's body to be let down into the earth. Wrenching her eyes away from that last glimpse of her brother's face, tears streaming down her cheeks, Ginny had found it almost a relief to comfort others as they prepared their loved ones for their graves. She grieved with them, but the intensity was removed, something she did not have to feel stabbing into her own heart.

Her mother had finally sent her away, for a break, and so Ginny headed for the Great Hall. Not because she was hungry, but because she hoped to find Harry there. Being with him was the only thing she could imagine would bring her comfort now.

She spied Ron halfway down the Gryffindor table, shovelling in shepherd's pie and washing it down with pumpkin juice. Ginny smiled in spite of herself at the familiar image, which, oddly enough, comforted her. The house elves would not let them go hungry, and her brother's appetite prevailed. Life did go on.

"Hey," she said gently, dropping a kiss onto Ron's head before she sat down beside him. "Where's Harry?"

Ron started at the unusual display of affection from his sister, looking at her in bewilderment for a moment before he smiled and placed his hand over hers. "Hey," he returned the greeting. "I don't know—McGonagall brought him something while we were working in the third floor corridor, and he took off faster than a Bowtruckle headed for the a nest of fairy eggs. Didn't see which way he went, and she told me to leave him be for a while."

Ginny frowned and got up immediately, heading for the main table at the far end of the hall, where Professor McGonagall and Professor Slughorn were deep in conversation. She paused for a moment, and then said, quietly but urgently, "Excuse me, Professor McGonagall, but where did Harry go?"

McGonagall peered down at her from over the spectacles that perched, ever business-like, on her nose, but her gaze was not unkind. "Potter has gone off to find a little . . . solitude, Miss Weasley. I am certain you understand that he needs and deserves that, no?"

Ginny simply stood, staring back at her and waiting.

"Oh, come now, Minerva," Slughorn chuckled, "if anyone should be, shall we say, 'welcomed' into Harry's quiet moments, I think it would be this young lady standing before us." He winked at Ginny knowingly.

McGonagall's face softened, but she pretended to frown at Slughorn's impertinence. "Really, Horace!" She clicked her tongue, and then turned back to Ginny, who remained rooted in place as she waited for a reply. "I believe you will find him down at the lake, by a certain ring of trees at the—"

"I know where they are," Ginny said quickly, and was gone, headed for the front door, before either of the teachers could take a breath.

Ginny hurried down the stone steps in front of Hogwarts, all weariness gone as she made for the lake. Something was wrong—she knew, she could feel that Harry needed her, despite what McGonagall said. Heedless of the others around her on the castle grounds, Ginny began to run, and soon was at the side of the lake farthest from the castle and headed for a small copse of willows, set off a way from the water's edge. She and Harry had spent many an hour there last year, after he had finally come to his senses and kissed her for the first time. These trees had been their favourite secret place to spend time together, to catch up on all the things they wanted to say to each other, and all the kisses and touches they both craved. Those trees had seen their happiest moments, and she was not about to leave Harry there now, alone, without her comfort.

She reached the ring of trees and put a hand out to part the trailing branches. There he was, leaning against the thickest trunk, which stood in the centre of the circle. Ginny walked over to Harry and sat down beside him. "I'm here," she said, simply and quietly.

Harry looked up at her, a weak smile on his lips that did not reach his eyes. She noticed, also, that his eyes were quite red. "Hi," he said, his voice cracking slightly as he spoke. He cleared his throat, looked at her, and then lapsed back into silence, staring out at the willow branches that sheltered them. Ginny sat, saying nothing, and after a minute, Harry reached out and drew her in to his side. She wrapped her arms around his waist and waited.

"We're alive," he said finally. "That's what counts, right?"

Ginny sighed, and laid her head on his shoulder. "Yes, but there are a lot of other things that count, too." She paused, then went on. "I love you, Harry."

His only response was to pull her in closer, put his head down to touch hers. Again, Ginny waited. Finally. . . . "I love you, too, Ginny," Harry whispered thickly, the tears he was holding back almost choking him. Again, he cleared his throat. "Yes, that counts, more than anything. Love . . ." His voice trailed off for a moment, and then he seemed to find words again. "Dumbledore told me that, so many times, and I never wanted to believe it. I always thought, there has to be something more. But, in the end, that was the strongest thing . . . for all of us."

He sat up straighter and began to rummage in a small pouch around his neck with his free hand. Ginny watched as he drew out two small pieces of paper; once he had them free, she caught a glimpse of something moving and realised that they were photographs.

"I found this in Sirius's room, at Grimmauld Place," Harry said bluntly as he handed one of the photographs to her.

Ginny took it and studied it for a moment before she realised what she held in her hands. It was, it had to be. . . . A picture of Harry as a baby. He was laughing, crowing in sheer joy as he whipped around the photograph on a toy broom, and you could see the legs of a man chasing him—almost certainly his father. Ginny sighed softly. She didn't know if she could ever look at this photo enough; she could hardly bear the thought of giving it back to him. She wanted to hold it, to treasure it, for the rest of her life. She looked up at Harry, tears shining in her eyes, and cupped his cheek in her hand.

Harry leaned into her touch for a moment, and then handed her the other photo. Ginny took it and recognised, after a moment of shock, that the two were actually one photograph, torn in half. A beautiful, young red-headed woman laughed and clapped her hand over her mouth as Harry careened through the other half of the photo, narrowly missing a cat that ran, screeching, out of the picture.

"Snape stole that half from Sirius's room," Harry said, his voice low with emotion. "He took it, he destroyed the photograph because . . . because he was in love with my mother." He bowed his head and closed his eyes.

Ginny's jaw dropped at this incomprehensible news, but she did not speak, did not voice any of the questions that begged to be asked. Holding the torn photo carefully in one hand, she slipped her other arm around him again, and held him close while she waited . . . for whatever Harry would do next.

"It's why he did . . . everything he's done for the last almost seventeen years," Harry finally whispered. "He hated me all that time, but he helped Dumbledore protect me, because of my mother. I don't know . . ." Harry's free hand came up in frustration and then flopped down onto the ground again. "I don't know what to think about him anymore. How could someone who loved so much be so . . ." Finally, with a strangled sound full of anger and sorrow, Harry's tears began to flow. "This picture," he said, gulping for breath, "was supposed to be MY memory, a record of MY life, not his. But . . ." He paused and turned to look at Ginny, tear tracks staining his cheeks. "But I think I know how he felt. All the time we were on the run this past year, I would take out the Marauders Map every night and look for you, make sure you were still safe. And it gave me hope, to have even that much contact with you. I can almost understand how this photo made him feel, how it got him through. . . ."

"But it wasn't his!" Ginny couldn't keep silent any longer, and her words came out in a fierce hiss. "He had no right to do this, to take this from you."

"But he did," Harry insisted, his voice quiet and sad. "I can't change that."

Ginny's mouth set in a firm line, and she pulled away from Harry, settling onto her knees. Taking out her wand, she spread the two halves of the photo across her palm and then waved her wand over them, murmuring an incantation, repeating the same ancient words again and again, until suddenly, the torn edges of the photo began to glow. The pieces floated up, hovering above her hand as they slowly moved together, the edges finding each other and weaving themselves back into a whole. Finally, when they were joined, the photo sank gently down onto Ginny's palm again, but continued to glow. The three figures in the image now laughed and moved and touched . . . together. Just the three of them. A family.

Ginny handed the photograph back to Harry, tears running down her own face as she looked at him with more love than she had ever felt for another person in her whole life—or ever would.

Harry stared up at her, mouth slightly open, and then he looked down at the photo again, scarcely able to believe his own eyes.

"Now it's yours again," Ginny whispered.


End file.
